I put up with having to click the “I’m still listening” button every hour or so.

I put up with the ads they started playing in between songs.

But today…

I’m done putting up, ‘cause they’re done putting out.

Back to KPLU, KKJZ or CDs for me.

UPDATE: Joseph reminded me about last.fm, which is apparently still free. I’m there!

Constancy: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 declares the constancy of true love.

The Stupid Filter project (thanks, Assaf). I wonder if I’d be the beneficiary or the victim of this effort — or both. Hrafn has more thoughts on this.

Woo-hoo! Pandora’s got classical! I’m Bachin’ out right now.

Regardless of your stand on the vaccine controversies, if you value individual liberties you’ve got to be troubled by this.

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything (thanks, Doc).

While we’re on the subject of unified theories…

Never getting off of your cloud.

If I did nothing but post links to everything brilliant that Reg writes, I’d have more than enough content. Here’s how to tip your hand to your programming partners.

Tish made USA Today, for her support of the Glaucoma Foundation in Blogathon 2007.

Cooper answered my three things meme tag with books, ideals, and a little fear — with peace and pornography on the side.

The Ominous Comma explains RSS.

Me on TechRepublic: keeping the books, hunting up business, and nailing down niches.

Thanks for the link-love, Mikko, Tim, and Eric!

Maybe I should know better than to mess with my notebook on a Sunday, but today I decided to install and activate the new Verizon V740 EVDO card that I received yesterday.  I want to have wireless Internet access next month when I attend the SPC, and also for any vacations we might take this summer.

When I ordered this card over the phone, the telesalesperson warned me to install the CD before inserting the card, or I’d have to travel through seven terraces of purgatory before arriving at a successful installation.

Having already read Dante in high school, I did as I was told.  When the VZAccess program asked me to insert the card and let Windows discover it, I plugged it into my ExpressCard slot.  Vista thought about it for a few minutes, then summarily rejected it: “Driver not signed.  This version of Windows can only installed signed drivers.”  No option to override.  Ah, Vista.  More paranoid than secure.

I tried going into Device Mangler to see if I could pull an end-around somehow, but no luck.  So I called Verizon telesales support.  I hate calling support, for several reasons:

1. You have to wade through long-winded menus for touch-tone pre-screening.
2. You explain your problem to three people, each of whom takes all your information again, before reaching someone who knows what you’re talking about.
3. They often treat you like you don’t know anything, or you did something wrong.

Verizon fulfilled my pessimistic expectations on points 1 and 2, but I must admit that once I got that third person on the line, they understood exactly what I was talking about, treated me with respect, and gave me a quick solution: I needed to download the latest version of their software, specifically patched for Vista.

Hmm.  I just ordered this card a few days ago.  OK, maybe the patch was issued yesterday?  But they went from version 6.1.1 in the box to 6.1.8 in the download.  Sounds to me like they’ve got a lot of 6.1.1 CD’s pre-boxed with the cards they need to get rid of, and maybe that’s good enough for most users.

The VZAccess program provides an option off the bat to check for updates, which I did.  And it did not tell me then about versions 6.1.2 through 6.1.8.  “You are running the latest version,” it lied.

I had to wonder how someone would ever get this working if they didn’t already have an Internet connection.  “Download the latest version.”  “But… but…”

But being a software developer myself, I can sympathize with release lags, unintentional fibs, and painting users into a corner.  So, I cheerfully navigated to the site to download it, where it asked me for my mobile number.  I keyed that in, and it failed to validate.  Luckily, the tech had given me his direct number to call back on.

“The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

Argh.  Back through the touch-tone maze, recite my information to three people again, and I end up with a different tech.  He gives me a different number to enter, and I was able to download without any trouble.  He even offered to call back in 45 minutes to see how everything goes.  That was an hour and a half ago, and I haven’t heard from him yet.

Thankfully, after downloading and installing the new version, the driver validated and the card connected on the first try.  But it seemed pretty slow.  The telesalesperson had said that in my area I should get broadband speeds over this baby.  The CNet bandwidth meter clocked me at a whopping 60.6 Kbps — just a little faster than dialup.  Good thing I bought the external antenna — that lifted the speed to 101.1 Kbps (about one tenth of my usual DSL speed).  Perhaps I’ll get better results in Sacramento or other travel destinations.  Mobile phone service here on the island is dicey at best.  Good thing I won’t need to use EVDO here, because if that’s the speed I get then lets just say that I won’t be listening to Pandora or visiting YouTube.

For music while working, I really like Pandora. But there’s one thing about Pandora that I don’t like:

If I don’t give it enough attention, the music stops and the dialog above displays. WTF? My FM radio doesn’t turn itself off every few hours if I don’t fiddle with the knobs, now does it?

OK, I understand they have a bandwidth cost (among other cost difficulties), but irritating your users isn’t the way to solve it.

Besides, recently Pandora has been just locking up at times. I’ve had to select a different channel or reload the page to get it going again.

I think I’ll load all of our CD’s into iTunes and listen to that for a while instead. Music at work is supposed to stimulate creativity, not be a nuisance.

Jeremiah Owyang started a new meme: The Media Consumption Diet. Even though Jeremiah didn’t tag me, his question interests me enough to respond. Here are my media inlets:

Feeds. Most of my inbound communications come through feeds. I like the way feeds are unobtrusive and by (my) invitation only. Spam does not exist in my feed reader, and nothing pops up in my face when I don’t want it to. I can give it just the amount of time I choose, when I choose. Less than two years ago, my feed consumption was zero. Now it’s my primary source. I prefer written posts over podcasts, since I’m a visual person who can read a lot faster than I can listen.

Web search and surf. Google leads me to lots of information. I’ve set up vanity searches in Google, Bloglines, and Technorati as feeds so I don’t have to think about them. I also use Wikipedia often, though I have mixed feelings about its worth. When I can’t find what I’m looking for, Clusty often surprises me.

Email. I try to move as much of my inbound email as possible to feeds, for the reasons stated above — the main one being spam. I have yet to find an email spam filter that doesn’t let a ton of spam get through, snag a lot of false positives, or both. And I get mountains of spam as a result of having my e-mail address posted on the web since 1997. Nevertheless, I still use email a lot — in fact it’s my primary means of communication with clients. I have some clients that I’ve never met or even spoken to over the phone. I’ve thought about setting up private blogs for client communications instead of using email, but I’ve never gotten around to doing anything about it.

IM. Instant messaging is very intrusive, so I only use it with a few special people (you know who you are). A while ago I dropped off of Windows Messenger in favor of GTalk. But apotheon tells me some good things about Gaim, so I’ll have to give that a look.

Telephone. The telephone intrudes even more than IM. I have to drop whatever else I’m doing and talk. Being a very visual person, I find it much more difficult to follow a conversation in sound rather than in writing. There’s no backing up to examine what was said. It gives you less time to consider your responses. If I could do away with the phone, I would. Unfortunately, many people feel more comfortable discussing things in voice, so I have to keep that channel available. But I let my answering machine help to mitigate the intrusions. Bless caller ID.

TV. I have no doubt that someday soon TV and the web will become one. In the mean time, most of the programming on TV doesn’t qualify as worthy of wasting my time. We have four TV’s in our house — two of them HD big screens — yet I watch maybe one hour a day, usually winding down with my wife in the evening. Until baseball season. Then that will change to about three hours a day, more on the weekend. Go Mariners, TD (who doesn’t have TV service)! I have a lot of respect for people who have taken TV out of their lives. I’m not quite ready to go there yet.

Music. At work I listen to jazz over Pandora. It’s much better than pre-programmed radio because I can tell it what I like and what I don’t like. It’s also better than just listening to our private collection of CD’s, because Pandora introduces me to new music that’s similar to what I like. Every now and then it makes a very wrong guess, but all I have to do is give it the thumbs down and it goes on to something else. In the car, I listen to radio (KPLU). At home we sometimes listen to CDs that we’ve owned for years. Every now and then we buy something we already know we like.

Books. I love to read a variety of books. Any genre, by any author, from any period. Check out my reading list since 1990. History, philosophy, and the classics top my favorites. Someday paper will become as obsolete as clay tablets and we’ll all be reading books online, and that will make me just a little bit sad. We’ll need leather-bound laptops (or whatever replaces them).

Movies. Every now and then we go to the cinema, but it’s such a waste of time and money. Much better to wait and rent the DVD. We can drink wine for half the cost of theater soda, and eat much better food. Pause for bathroom breaks. No sticky floors. No big heads seated in front of you. And nowadays the screen and sound quality are almost as good. That said, we don’t rent much either. Maybe ten flicks a year, at most.

Magazines go right into the recycle bin. I subscribe to none. This is a job for RSS. TCP/IP beats the Postal Service every time.

Newspapers. Why kill a tree? Feeds for me. The only paper we subscribe to is the local Bainbridge Island Review, and that’s only because their best parts aren’t provided online. And they don’t have a feed. Luddites.

Mobile. I don’t yet use my phone for web access, although I’m sure that will come in time. I turn on my phone only when leaving the house, so I can be reached in an emergency. I don’t use mobile for business, because if I’m not in front of my computers I can’t do much anyway. One day I suppose I’ll have a decent enough notebook with wireless internet, and then mobile communications will make more sense. But even then, I’ll need to have pockets of time when I’m unreachable, for sanity’s sake.

How about you? What are your media eyes and ears?

The web just turned sixteen yesterday (thanks, TDavid), so I should take it easy on her, right?

No, I didn’t think so. Hey, wait a minute, didn’t we just sing Happy Webday back in August? We’re going to have to decide on which one of these dates really is the web’s birthday. Oh, and the oldest known web page?

Links and Anchors

A link is the connection between one piece of hypertext and another.

That’s a pretty good place to start.

TechRepublic: Microsoft flags Gmail as a virus:

“This was a limited false positive issue with our antivirus protection,” a Microsoft representative said Monday. “After we became aware of the issue, we released a new antivirus signature that resolved the issue for our customers on Sunday evening.”

Translation: “if you were using our e-mail service, you wouldn’t have been down for three days.”

Scott Adams presents a surprisingly balanced and unsurprisingly humorous discussion on the practical value of intelligence. Only one off-balance remark:

The best performing groups were the ones where there was one smart person and the rest of the group deferred to him.

Oops. Generic use of gender-specific pronoun in the worst possible location.

Shelley Batts (you thought I was going to say “Powers“, now didn’t you?) leads us on a deliciously snarky virtual tour of the soon-to-be-opened Creationist Museum in Kentucky, commenting on descriptions from The Guardian. My favorite:

Speaking of the Flood, in the museum you’ll also find a large model of the Ark, as well as a soothing voice explaining how all those animals that usually eat each other were able to behave themselves for 40 days on a big boat that didn’t even have a midnight buffet.

Then Shelley finds yet another instance of “who, us proselytizing?”

New topic aggregator Megite. Shelley (Powers, this time) says it’s more inclusive than Techmeme. A quick look at the current postings does seem to find more bloggers from farther down in the Technorati rankings, but it’s hard to tail.

Mother Earth, Father Sky? via [Geeks Are Sexy].

Awesome. Me neither, Chris. At work, I’m streaming Pandora. In the car, KPLU. Outside, it’s the melody of the birds and the soft brush of the wind in the trees.

Gee thanks, Joseph. Just wait ’til you see what I can do with rubber bands. I don’t think I’ll purchase those tickets to Stockholm just yet, though.

I finally got around to trying Pandora, the free online music service that learns what you like. I’ve been a great fan of KPLU jazz for some time now, but lately their frequency of disconnect has been frustrating. So, I decided to give Pandora a try.

It has a pretty slick interface. At any time, you can press the “Guide Us” button to provide more input. When you do, you get this slide-up dialog:

If you select the last option, you get:

After you enter something, the Music Genome engine figures out if this is an artist or title (if it could be either, then it asks you which). If it’s still ambiguous, you get a set of possible choices. Once you get your selection accepted, that artist or song is analyzed by the Music Genome engine to determine what other music is similar. The resulting set is added to your station.

The tune currently playing is shown to the right, with your previously played tracks trailing off to the left. You can hover over these and rate them, too.

After seeding my “Jazz” station with a few of my favorite artists, I let it go. Sure enough, it started picking up other artists I like (like Susanna McCorkle shown above) that I had forgotten about. The longer I let it go, the more it experimented with my tastes. I had a few rejects come through (not that I disliked the music, I just didn’t want to work to it), so I gave those the thumbs down. Pandora immediately skipped on to the next tune.

The sound quality seems pretty good, and I only had one case of jerky audio when I had a pretty intense compute operation going on my workstation. It wouldn’t hurt to run this on a low-activity system, but most of the time you shouldn’t need that.

I think I’m going to really like this service, because you can pay attention to it when you want to, or let it proceed with the program when you’re doing other things. One feature I wish it had: the ability to search for and play a specific artist or title immediately. It usually brings it up pretty soon in the queue anyway after adding it, but an immediate play feature would be nice. It would also be nice to be able to skip over a song without either removing it from the station or suspending it for a month.� UPDATE: there is a skip feature — it’s the little fast-forward button in the upper-right.
If you select the “Minimize” link at the top, Pandora relaunches in a popup browser that sizes down to the control window’s size. Using Firefox, I noticed that clicking on some of the interactive features caused that window to resize down further, obscuring part of the current tune. That’s oddly similar to problems I’ve had with WordPress dashboard popups in Firefox, so perhaps this is a Firefox (or extension) problem.